Motivational Quotes

Silence

Silence is a text easy to misread.

- A. A. Attanasio

Best Quotes about Silence

I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo.

Beckett, Samuel

He who does not know how to be silent will not know how to speak.

Ausonius

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.

Thoreau, Henry David

A silent mouth is melodious.

Proverb, Irish

A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill, requires only our silence, which costs nothing.

John Tillotson

It takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they speak with the accent of natives they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds.

Illich, Ivan

A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren't we like that wise old bird?

Richards, Edward Hersey

The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it.

Twain, Mark

An inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.

Bagehot, Walter

10.

I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.

Xenocrates of Chalcedon

11.

Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. [Proverbs 17:28]

Bible

12.

Their silence is sufficient praise.

Terence

13.

Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!

Burns, Robert

14.

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

William Penn

15.

I went down with the ship but I kept my mouth shut so I didn't drown like the rest of them.

16.

Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.

Muhammad Ali

17.

There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.

Voltaire

18.

Silence is argument carried on by other means.

Guevara, Che

19.

When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.

Disraeli, Benjamin

20.

Silence is the perfectos herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.

Shakespeare, William

21.

It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.

Seneca

22.

If you keep your mouth shut you will never put your foot in it.

O'Malley, Austin

23.

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.

William Shakespeare

24.

'Tis best to be silent in a bad cause.

Ovid

25.

When thou art quiet and silent, then art thou as God was before nature and creature; thou art that which God then wats; thou art that whereof he made thy nature and creature: Then thou hearest and seest even with that wherewith God himself saw and heard in thee, before every thine own willing or thine own seeing began.

Boehme, Jacob

26.

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.

Martin Fraquhar Tupper

27.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation, as allowed by Cicero himself, who says,'there is not only an art, but an eloquence in it.'A well bred woman may easily and effectually promote the most useful and elegant conversation without speaking a word. The modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence.

Tom Blair

28.

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

Publilius Syrus

29.

What she doesn't say is just as important as what she does say -- but there's so much more of it. I think from now on I'm going to stick to what she actually does say because I don't have that kind of time.

Katz, Jonathan

30.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

Samuel Johnson

31.

A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

Thomas Hardy

32.

Oppression can only survive through silence.

Carmen de Monteflores

33.

Keep your mouth closed until your mind is in gear.

34.

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

Josh Billings

35.

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with it fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.

Carlyle, Thomas

36.

Words can sting like anything, but silence breaks the heart.

Mcginley, Phyllis

37.

In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.

Meister Eckhart

38.

The whisper of a pretty girl can be heard further than the roar of a lion.

Proverb, Arabian

39.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Abraham Lincoln

40.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Sir Francis Bacon

41.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

42.

I am better able to retract what I did not say than what I did.

Gabirol, Ibn

43.

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.

Gaulle, Charles De

44.

Sometimes a whisper speaks volumes.

Sheddan, Scott

45.

Sticks and stones are hard on bones aimed with angry art. Words can sting like anything but silence breaks the heart.

Mcginley, Phyllis

46.

Silence may be golden, but can you think of a better way to entertain someone than to listen to him?

Young, Brigham

47.

An now the silences come in a single lifetime, in a single year... when species die, leaving a silent space in the world song that can never be filled.

Delint, Charles

48.

Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

Helprin, Mark

49.

Silence is the true friend that never betrays.

Confucius

50.

Not to ask is not be denied.

Dryden, John